Tuesday, October 26, 2010

How Twitter Saved My Street

It all started with a morning walk down my street. That's when I saw it for the first time - a small hole in the road. But as I crouched down to inspect it I noticed it was more than just a break in the asphalt. There didn't seem to be any dirt underneath for at least a foot or so. Was it the start of a catastrophic sinkhole? A portal to another dimension? A shortcut to Clackamas? Either way, I photographed it and twittered about it:

I got back to him with the info and the very next morning when I took my morning walk I discovered this:

Twenty-four hours later a cone and a barricade were already in position over the hole. And there was some official-looking spray painting around the area too. And that's how it stayed for a little over a month. Then late last week I noticed this piece of machinery in the area:

Later that morning the asphalt had been ripped up and they had leveled out the dirt and gravel underneath:

And just a few hours after that the barricade was gone and there were four cones protecting the freshly paved (and hole-free) patch of street. Beautiful.

It was pretty exciting to watch the whole process and it all happened surprisingly quickly. You always hear about all hassle and trouble it takes to get things done in a city, but this got resolved so efficiently. Maybe they call it "the city that works" for a reason. To be completely honest, someone else may have called or contacted the city as well (heck, maybe there was a letter-writing campaign I never heard about), but can we pretend that my twitter started it all? Or maybe Mayor Adams and the folks at the city gov can fill in their side of the story? How do all these things work anyway?